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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25960204">The end of the world as we know it</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenguinofProse/pseuds/PenguinofProse'>PenguinofProse</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The 100 (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Fluff, Pancakes, superhero au</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 08:49:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,913</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25960204</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenguinofProse/pseuds/PenguinofProse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern superheroes AU. Bellamy and Clarke are considerate community heroes, helping the residents of Arkadia with their everyday problems. Pure silly fluff.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>69</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The end of the world as we know it</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Welcome to an unapologetically silly modern superheroes AU. Kind of. We've got Bellamy and Clarke as considerate community heroes, and more fluff than plot. Also the occasional strong opinion on issues of social justice. Happy reading!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There sure are a lot of apocalypses in Arkadia, at least if the local newspaper headlines are to be believed. Bellamy can just imagine tomorrow's <em>Arkadia Post</em> headline now –  <em>APOCALYPTIC INFERNO ENGULFS PUBLIC TOILET</em>, he's betting. He's not convinced that public toilets will be the first targets to fall if ever the end of days does strike, but he's long since learnt that there's no reasoning with journalists.</p><p>He sighs, and sets down his bucket. The public toilet is now smouldering quietly, and his work is done. He supposes he could probably have left this one to the actual fire services, but it's been a slow week to be a superhero. It's been a slow month, if he's being honest, or even a slow <em>year</em>, with very little to do except help out with the occasional fire or return the odd item of stolen property. So he has to do what he can to keep the visibility and reputation of The Knight going strong.</p><p>The lack of opportunities to don his cape has not exactly been helped by the arrival of the new girl on the scene, either. The Princess has been stealing his gigs, slowly but surely, in Arkadia for the last couple of months. But he beat her here tonight, and that's a victory he's disproportionately proud of.</p><p>As if summoned by his thoughts, a soft voice speaks up from somewhere in the shadows on his left.</p><p>"Could have left a girl a few flames to deal with."</p><p>He looks up, and sure enough it's The Princess, stepping towards him, her pink cape hanging listlessly around her shoulders, her crown tilting alarmingly on her head.</p><p>"Weren't a lot of flames in the first place." He says with a shrug.</p><p>"No one warned me being a hero would be so dull." She says, sitting heavily on the curb.</p><p>Bellamy frowns down at her. She seems sad, but also she's stealing his work. He's not sure how to feel about this. "Shouldn't you be grateful no one's dying or anything?" He asks, in the end.</p><p>"Of course I'm grateful no one's dying." She snaps, annoyed with him. Well at least she looks angry rather than sad, now. He guesses that has to count as progress.</p><p>"So pipe down and get here earlier next time." He tells her, smirking.</p><p>With that, he saunters off into the night. Fraternising with the enemy is dangerous, he's pretty sure.</p><p>…...</p><p>He was more or less right about the headline, it turns out. There's really not a lot to get excited about in Arkadia apart from mishaps like this. But he's annoyed, on reading the article, to find that this journalist has added some unhelpful and unnecessary commentary on the situation.</p><p>
  <em>Is this the proof we were waiting for that only men can be true heroes? There was no sign of The Princess and her much-vaunted "girl power" at the scene last night. After her notable absence from the tragic Polis fence incident last week, we can only presume she has chosen to hang up her cape.</em>
</p><p>Bellamy throws the article aside, disgusted. He might not like The Princess, might wish she would piss off back to whatever city she was protecting up until a couple of months ago, but there's no need to be so pointlessly sexist about the whole thing. Obviously she's a perfectly valid hero – or heroine, of course, however she chooses to refer to herself. And regardless of how he feels about her, he quite likes what she's trying to do here, by wearing a pink cape and a princess crown and proving that anyone can be a hero, regardless of gender or fashion choices. He's noticed that it kind of mirrors what he does as The Knight, flaunting his masculinity and super-strength but making a point of being kind and emotional, too.</p><p>They mirror each other too well, and that's a coincidence that was entirely accidental and annoys him a little more than it probably should, now he comes to think about it.</p><p>He sighs and reaches for his laptop. He thinks he ought to write to the editor of the <em>Arkadia Post</em> and demand that they teach this sexist journalist some more appropriate opinions. It's not exactly a heroic act in the most physical and stereotypical of senses, but he thinks that calling out sexism probably has a part to play in preventing apocalypses, too.</p><p>…...</p><p>The Princess is also late to the site of the next minor mishap to befall Arkadia.</p><p>It's not a fire this time, but a flood. More good material for the headline writers, Bellamy muses. A storm drain is blocked on Thirteenth Street and all hell is breaking loose. He wades through brown water and wonders whether he'll be able to get the stain out of his cape before he next has to wear it.</p><p>Then The Princess rocks up, breathless and with her crown askew once again.</p><p>"I'm so sorry I'm late." She huffs out, flustered.</p><p>He frowns at her. "Pretty sure you can't be late, Princess. Not like you've signed a contract for this job."</p><p>She ignores him. "I just keep missing things. How do you do it? How do you balance a real life with always showing up at the right time?"</p><p>He ignores her, then, in his turn. It's taken years of practice to balance his three jobs and caring for his sister with being a top-quality hero. He's not interested in explaining his steep learning curve to the competition.</p><p>She seems unconcerned by his silence, and sets to work. She picks up a bucket, starts scooping mucky water out of the way. She's getting her cape dirty, but she doesn't seem to care. They work in companionable silence for a couple of minutes, during which time Bellamy muses that being a hero is a lot messier and less glorious than he used to think it would be, back when he was a young boy listening to his mother tell tales of Achilles.</p><p>The Princess breaks eventually, and sets down her bucket with a sigh. Bellamy knew she would break first – not because she's a woman, but because she's new on the scene, and Arkadia is his patch for heroic acts, thank you very much.</p><p>"This is pointless." She announces. "We should just unblock the drain."</p><p>"Do you know how to unblock drains?" He asks, incredulous. What he really wants to ask is whether she wants to wade right up to her waist through this to get to the drain, but he wouldn't like to imply he's not up for that.</p><p>For the record, though, wading through this does sound distinctly unappealing.</p><p>She doesn't answer his question. She simply marches off in the direction of the drain – or perhaps <em>squelches</em> – and sets to work. And within minutes she's making victorious noises and, slowly but surely, the water level is starting to drop.</p><p>"Told you we needed to unblock the drain." She says, smug and filthy, when she returns to his side.</p><p>"It was a good idea." He acknowledges, although it hurts him to do so.</p><p>"You see, sometimes you need to use your head instead of your muscles." She teases him, reaching out to give his bicep a fleeting squeeze.</p><p>She disappears, then, walks back into the night. She leaves behind no sign that she was ever even here, besides that filthy hand print on his bicep.</p><p>He only stares at it for a couple of seconds. Any longer would be weird, he thinks.</p><p>…...</p><p>The next disaster – or mild inconvenience – does not involve buckets, and for that Bellamy is grateful. He may have super strength and all, but he's sick of buckets. He has to lug plenty of them around seeing as two of his day jobs are in cleaning.</p><p>No, this disaster is a good one. A young girl is trapped in a cabin at the outdoor centre because a tree has fallen across the door. She's unhurt, only stuck inside, and so this is exactly the kind of situation Bellamy likes the most – minimal casualties, maximum heroics. All he needs to do is waltz over there the moment his shift at the library ends and lift the tree out of the way.</p><p>Only by the time he gets there, the tree has been shifted, and the girl is gone.</p><p>"You look confused." The Princess tells him, because <em>of course </em>she beat him to it.</p><p>"What – how did you?" That wasn't his best sentence, so he tries again. "You don't have super strength." He states, but it's half way to a question.</p><p>"No. I don't. I used my head." She tells him, smirking a little. "Well, actually I used a lever to lift the tree out of the way. And now Charlotte's headed safely home with her mum."</p><p>"You used a lever." He repeats, somewhere between impressed and intimidated.</p><p>"Yeah. Problem solving is my super power." She explains, frowning at the floor. She seems embarrassed, and he's not sure why - it's certainly a useful super power, even if it's not a common one.</p><p>"Next time there's a flood we should use an Archimedes screw." He suggests mildly.</p><p>She gapes at him for a second, and he's proud of that. It's not that he actually wants there to be another flood or anything. He just wanted this newcomer to know that he's no fool, thank you very much. She may be a problem solver who keeps going on about using her head but he's smart too, damn it.</p><p>And yeah, sure, name-dropping an Archimedes screw like that might have been unnecessary. But he regrets nothing.</p><p>…...</p><p>Bellamy probably doesn't need to go save the cat from the tree. Cats in trees are not really the stuff of epic poetry, are they? But he's been short of work recently – this kind of work, at least. Heaven knows he's got plenty to do at the library and with his cleaning work and caring for his sister.</p><p>He certainly doesn't need The Princess to help him save the cat from the tree. But all the same, he's disappointed when she doesn't show up.</p><p>He hangs around a little after his work is done, just in case. If she's going to rush here late, he wouldn't like her to arrive to find the street empty and him already gone. It just seems rude, you know? And he's all about combining kindness and integrity with his strength.</p><p>He's been there over an hour by the time she arrives. He doesn't have an hour to waste in his life, as a general rule – he's got a lot on his plate. But somehow he doesn't regret waiting for her.</p><p>"I'm so sorry." She pants, as she jogs down the street, cape streaming out behind her. "This is a nightmare. I thought it looked like a quiet evening so I took a moment to watch a film but then this -"</p><p>"What were you watching?" He asks. It's not like he actually cares or anything, he just doesn't want her to keep apologising so pointlessly.</p><p>She flushes beneath her mask, visibly embarrassed.</p><p>"Well?" He prompts.</p><p>"Captain Marvel." She barely whispers the words. "I'm trying to learn more about how to be a hero. I guess the first rule is don't get distracted by a movie and miss your chance to be a hero."</p><p>"You're doing great." He says bracingly, because really, she is. That lever the other week was a good plan, and he still hasn't quite got over it. He's not used to the idea that a hero ought to think first and flex their muscles second – he's more of the old school of heroism, more about straight-up heavy lifting.</p><p>"You think?" She asks, small, improbably optimistic.</p><p>"Yeah. Here, give me your phone."</p><p>She hands it over without question, which Bellamy judges her for slightly. Hasn't it occurred to her that she is his competition, and that this might all be an elaborate scheme to sabotage her?</p><p>It isn't, of course. He just thinks it's past time they swapped numbers. That way they can let each other know when a situation arises.</p><p>Yes, he's aware that cooperation with his competition is a bit of a paradox. But he might not mind so very much if they became friends instead of rivals. It might be OK to have someone to chat about the hero life with, you know? He types his number into her phone, hovers for a moment over <em>contact name</em>. He's The Knight, of course, but is that really how he wants to be known to the one person he's ever met who understands this double life he leads?</p><p>He types Bellamy Blake without further hesitation, leaves himself a missed call, then hands her phone back to her.</p><p>"What's your name?" He asks, as he fishes his own phone out of his pocket. A good hero always has deep and secure pockets – losing your keys on a mission is a nightmare.</p><p>"The Princess." She says, frowning at him as if he's a fool for asking.</p><p>"No, I mean – what's your <em>name</em>?" He asks, waving his phone at her. "I thought we should swap numbers, let each other know what's going on. So I can ring you next time you get distracted by a movie and you can tell me if I don't need to bother sneaking out of work early for a problem you've already solved."</p><p>"Oh." Her eyes widen. "<em>Oh</em>. Yeah. Clarke Griffin."</p><p>It's a beautiful but unusual name, for a beautiful but unusual woman, he decides.</p><p>…...</p><p>It's a quiet week. Clarke texts him once, when he's up to his elbows in deep cleaning some rich family's home.</p><p>
  <em>Found the lost wallet. No need for you to stop by. See you next time.</em>
</p><p><em>My hero</em>. He texts back, hoping she finds that funny and not exceptionally cringe-worthy.</p><p>Not that it matters if she finds him funny, obviously. They're not friends or anything. They're just... colleagues. Colleagues, former rivals, helpful acquaintances.</p><p>But if she does find him funny, that's fine too.</p><p>…...</p><p>Bellamy is in the library when he hears about the bridge collapse. No one is hurt, thank goodness, but the street is a mess, apparently, and cars are stranded in all the wrong places.</p><p><em>I'm stuck at work</em>. He texts Clarke, frustrated. <em>You?</em></p><p>
  <em>I'll be there in five.</em>
</p><p>It's a good arrangement they've got going, he decides. It takes the pressure off, to know that he's not alone in being the community hero round here. And it's pretty cool to have someone he can share this part of his life with, someone who understands the joys and frustrations.</p><p>By the time he finishes at work and makes it to the site of the accident, there is not a soul to be seen apart from a certain Princess in her pink cape.</p><p>"Where is everyone?" He asks, puzzled.</p><p>"I persuaded them all to get out of our way, thought that would make things simpler. Lift those cars out of the way, could you?"</p><p>"What, no levers today?" He teases, cheerfully, as he gets to work shifting a beat-up old Volvo she's pointing at.</p><p>It's good, working with Clarke like this. She's evacuated the area and manged the curious journalists, and he's lifting some cars around. Everyone has their skill sets, and the two of them balance each other quite well.</p><p>That's a coincidence that was entirely accidental and pleases him a little more than it probably should, now he comes to think about it.</p><p>By the time they are done it's growing late.</p><p>"I should head home." Clarke says, apologetic. "I've got an early shift tomorrow."</p><p>He wants to ask what she does for a living, wants to get to know her beyond this bubble of minor miracles they share together. But he's not sure that's allowed – does their friendship exist, outside of their humble heroics?</p><p>"Me too." He says in the end, and it's not a lie.</p><p>He's feeling a little low as he trudges home, and he cannot quite work out why. That was objectively the biggest incident he's been able to act heroic about for a while now, and they did a good job together. And it was great working with Clarke – smooth and efficient and even a teeny bit fun.</p><p>But there's something missing. And he wonders if he might find it, if only he can convince himself to ask what her day job is, next time.</p><p>…...</p><p>There isn't a next time.</p><p>Nothing has happened this week, and nothing happened last week. It's not just that he's been dealing with lost cats instead of toilet fires – there has been absolutely <em>nothing</em> of interest whatsoever going on in Arkadia.</p><p>Three weeks since he last saw Clarke, he admits defeat and calls her.</p><p>"Thank God." She says, as she picks up the phone. "I'm going spare. Please tell me this is at least a good rubbish bin fire."</p><p>"No. Sorry. I was -"</p><p>"A stolen car, then? Major fly-tipping?"</p><p>"No."</p><p>She sighs. "You know what? I'm so desperate I'll even take a missing parrot."</p><p>"It isn't any of those things. It's nothing." He steels his courage, takes a deep breath. "I was calling to say there's absolutely nothing happening in town and to ask if you want to hang out anyway."</p><p>She doesn't even hesitate. "Yeah, go on then. Want to come over? Or want me to head to yours?"</p><p>"Do you like pancakes?" He asks, partly because he's curious about the answer. But largely because there's no way on this Earth he's inviting her here, so she can judge him for his crappy house on the crappy side of town. He doesn't know exactly where she lives, of course, but he knows instinctively that she can't have chosen to be The Princess by accident.</p><p>"I love pancakes."</p><p>He gives her the address of his favourite diner, and tells her he'll be there in half an hour.</p><p>…...</p><p>This is the first time Bellamy has ever seen Clarke outside of her Princess costume. He ought to have prepared for this better, he thinks. He ought to have realised she'd be beautiful, and that seeing her here with all that blonde hair and wearing clothes that highlight her curves instead of concealing them would do funny things to his insides.</p><p>He swallows, and presses on, and takes a seat opposite her at the table she has chosen.</p><p>"You are Clarke, right?" He makes a poor joke of it.</p><p>"Yeah. Don't need to ask whether you're Bellamy." She says, flushing for reasons he is entirely curious about, but too much of a coward to investigate.</p><p>Damn it. Now she'll think he hasn't been paying particular attention to her appearance, when he most certainly has. Or is that a good thing? Will it make him seem respectful and not at all shallow? He doesn't know.</p><p>It turns out that having a friendly colleague might not be so good for his sanity.</p><p>"Are you OK?" She asks, audibly concerned, shoving a menu across the table to him.</p><p>"Yeah. Great. It's just a little strange this, isn't it?"</p><p>She laughs. "Yeah, I'll say. What are we even going to talk about? Are you going to tell me loads of stories from your decades of experience as a hero?"</p><p>"I've only been doing this five years." He corrects her smartly.</p><p>"I've barely been doing this five months."</p><p>He nods, pretends to read his menu. He already knows what he's going to order, but he cannot afford to look at her eyes too much longer.</p><p>"I was thinking we could get to know each other, actually." He says, casual, as if this is no big deal. "I don't even know what your day job is?"</p><p>"I'm a doctor." She says easily. "Just started at Arkadia general. That's why I moved here. It's my first job since graduating med school."</p><p>All at once, the bottom falls out of his world. Of course she's a doctor, with a fancy college education, and money and prestige and all those other things he will never have. Of course she's out of his league in every possible way.</p><p>Not that it matters if she's out of his league, obviously. This isn't a date.</p><p>Well, even if it was ever a date, it's certainly not one now, is it?</p><p>"What about you?" She prompts, still smiling a sunny smile.</p><p>"Oh." He swallows. "I do a couple different jobs. I'm my sister's guardian, and she's still in high school, so – yeah. Money."</p><p>Clarke is supposed to look scornful at that. She's supposed to even laugh, perhaps. These are the sort of unkind reactions he's been getting his whole life.</p><p>That's half the reason he became The Knight, in case that wasn't obvious.</p><p>Clarke doesn't look scornful in the slightest. "That's incredible, Bellamy. You're working multiple jobs and raising a kid and you still have time to be a hero? That's quite something."</p><p>He's flustered by her positive reaction. "I won't be raising O much longer. She's eighteen this year."</p><p>Clarke nods, smiling an encouraging smile.</p><p>He takes a risk. "I work Mondays and Tuesdays at the library." He's not ready to tell her about cleaning toilets for the other half of his living, however kind she's been so far.</p><p>"You like books?" She asks.</p><p>"What gave it away?" He teases, brow quirked.</p><p>They continue that way for the rest of the evening, learning the more everyday things about each other, ordering pancakes, drinking milkshakes and generally having a good time, Bellamy likes to think.</p><p>It might be a date. It might not be a date. Whatever it is, it's <em>fun</em>.</p><p>…...</p><p>Clarke phones him three days later.</p><p>"There's a couch fly-tipped behind the outdoor centre." She informs him, tone even.</p><p>He's a little disappointed, he doesn't mind admitting it. He was hoping this might be a social call, not a crummy dumped couch.</p><p>"Great. I'll see you there." He tries to sound cheery, and does not quite succeed.</p><p>"It doesn't take two heroes to move a couch." She points out.</p><p>His heart sinks further. "I guess." He acknowledges.</p><p>"But maybe I could watch you lift the couch with your super biceps and then take you to get pancakes?" She offers, and he notes that she sounds a little nervous. She doesn't need to sound nervous, he thinks - that was an excellent use of her problem solving skills, in his opinion.</p><p>"I don't have super <em>biceps</em>, Clarke. I have super <em>strength</em>."</p><p>"Is that a yes to the pancakes?"</p><p>"It's definitely a yes to the pancakes."</p><p>…...</p><p>There's been so little happening in Arkadia that Bellamy finds himself rather taken by surprise when something genuinely apocalyptic threatens.</p><p>There's this guy who lives in a fortified house on top of the mountain just outside the city. Bellamy thinks that should probably have been the first clue to the authorities that this guy was dangerous – friendly folks do not live in fortified houses at the top of mountains, in his experience as a hero. Anyway, this man – Bill, his name is – has decided that he wishes to destroy the whole town with a death ray because they are, in his opinion, "unbelievers".</p><p>It's not clear what they are failing to believe in, but Bellamy supposes that is hardly the most important issue just now.</p><p>The problem is, this Bill guy used to work in government weapons research, so it seems reasonably likely that he does actually have a death ray. And the authorities are nervous about sending in the military because of the very high risk of casualties. It's not always a good idea to make a full-frontal assault on the home of a guy with a death ray.</p><p>That's where Bellamy and Clarke come in.</p><p>They make urgent plans to get pancakes together, because all heroes should be fuelled by pancakes. And then they sit and compare ideas.</p><p>"We can't just charge up there and attack, that's clear." Clarke offers. "We need another way in. A Trojan horse." She suggests, with a pointed smile Bellamy is quick to return.</p><p>"We need an inside man." He suggests. "Someone to get into the house and lower the defences."</p><p>"I like the way you're thinking." She says, and he finds himself smirking a little. That's a good compliment, coming from Clarke, and he's going to treasure it.</p><p>"He must have a cleaner, right? He's an old rich guy with a fortified house. No way does he vacuum his own carpets. Inside man sneaks in as a cleaner. Bam! Job done."</p><p>Clarke frowns. "How are we going to find a cleaner who has the skills to take down a fortress? Or are you suggesting I <em>pretend</em> to be a cleaner?"</p><p>Bellamy takes a deep breath. "I'm not suggesting that. I know exactly where we're going to find a cleaner with the skills to take down a fortress. Me."</p><p>She blinks. "You?"</p><p>"Yeah. I'm a janitor at the school, and I take some shifts with this domestic cleaning firm too." He swallows. "It's not a big deal."</p><p>Please don't make it a big deal.</p><p>Please don't make it a big deal.</p><p>To her credit, Clarke seems to realise that she is in danger of offending him. She pastes on a bright smile, and presses on with the plan.</p><p>"That works out great, then. It's like you were born for this. But I'm worried it might be dangerous for you to go in there alone."</p><p>He shrugs. "I'm a hero. It's what we do."</p><p>She seems to be staring at him pretty hard, he notes. Maybe also blushing a little. And biting her lip, and that's really very distracting.</p><p>He resolutely ignores her and takes another bite of pancake.</p><p>…...</p><p>Bellamy only feels a little nervous as he walks to the back door of old Bill's house. He's dressed in the uniform of his cleaning firm, and ready to explain that he's covering for Bill's regular cleaner who is tragically feeling unwell. It's a good plan, all things considered.</p><p>By far the best bit of the plan is Clarke's constant and reassuring voice in his earpiece, and the knowledge that she is hiding out in the trees just beyond the perimeter of the house, ready to storm in and help arrest Bill the moment Bellamy has completed his task.</p><p>"Remember you're looking for the control room." Clarke says, for perhaps the tenth time.</p><p>Bellamy ignores the words, but it's nice to hear her voice. He might have the tiniest crush on his rival-turned-colleague. Maybe he should do something about that, just as soon as he's averted this apocalypse.</p><p>He mops the floors for a bit, because it's important to maintain his disguise. He dusts the mantel in Bill's office, because frankly it's filthy. There's no way he can in all good conscience leave it in that state. He takes pride in a job well done, even if he is in the middle of a mission right now.</p><p>And then he heads in search of the control room.</p><p>He finds it easily enough and enters. But that's when the real trouble starts, because he hasn't really got the faintest clue what he's looking for. In an ideal world, he reckons there would be a button labelled <em>ACTIVATE DEATH RAY </em>and another labelled <em>DISABLE DEATH RAY</em>.</p><p>Needless to say, he sees no such buttons.</p><p>"I've got a control panel but I don't know what anything means." He hisses to Clarke.</p><p>"Is there anything called <em>system shutdown</em>, perhaps?" She offers, incongruously optimistic.</p><p>There isn't. This whole thing is some giant computer system, and he has absolutely no clue how it works. He knows very little about computers beyond how to watch Marvel movies for research purposes and that Octavia is always costing him a fortune by spilling soda on her laptop.</p><p>That gives him what is quite possibly the best idea of his life.</p><p>"If I take out this computer that controls everything, he can't activate anything, right?" He whispers.</p><p>"I'd say so." Clarke agrees.</p><p>"Great."</p><p>"What are you planning to do?" She asks.</p><p>"I'm going to disable the computer." He says, because that sounds more impressive than a strictly literal description of what he plans to do.</p><p>Clarke keeps talking, asking questions in his earpiece, but he ignores her. Her voice gives him confidence, and that's enough right now.</p><p>He picks up his bucket of water, dirty from mopping the floor, and dumps it all over the computer. There's a fizzing noise, a little crackling. Some steam.</p><p>Excellent.</p><p>He takes a bottle of floor cleaner, adds that to the mix, too. It smells unpleasant, kind of soapy, and he figures that can only be a good thing.</p><p>He turns to his trolley of cleaning supplies, and picks up the bleach. You shouldn't mix bleach with other cleaning products, because it can release dangerous chemicals.</p><p>Dangerous chemicals sound like just the ticket, right now.</p><p>He opens the bleach, dumps it over the computer, and gets out of there. He's not going to stand around to find out whether those dangerous chemicals are pretty colours.</p><p>"You should be good now." He tells Clarke.</p><p>"Yeah. Looks that way. The lights just went out on the fence." She tells him, audibly breathless.</p><p>"Clarke? What are you doing?"</p><p>"Climbing the fence."</p><p>He laughs, because he should have known. Of course she's already half way over the fence, by now. What else did he expect? It's no accident that she's a hero.</p><p>…...</p><p>Bill is arrested without too much fanfare, in the end. The government scientists take the death ray machine away, and Bellamy thinks they look a bit too interested in it, but he keeps quiet. If anyone does get overexcited and start threatening to burn Arkadia to the ground in future, he and Clarke will be around to take care of it.</p><p>He's not sure what to do with himself now it's all over. He finds himself standing on Bill's front lawn, watching police and military and even fire services come and go, feeling distinctly lacking in purpose. There are journalists crowding just beyond the fence, but he doesn't suppose they'll want to interview him. He's dressed as a cleaner, today, not a hero.</p><p>Clarke finds him there, eventually. She's wearing her Princess gear, pink cape fluttering behind her, crown set more or less straight on her head for once.</p><p>He can't have that. He reaches up to tweak it sideways a little, gets it listing at an appropriately chaotic angle. And then somehow his hand never quite leaves, but just skims the side of her face until his palm seems to be resting on her cheek.</p><p>"It's good to see you." He mutters, perhaps half way to admitting that he was almost a little nervous, there, in the beginning.</p><p>"You, too. I know you're going to say it's all in a day's work for a heroic cleaner but – that was quite something, Bellamy."</p><p>He grins, pleased. "You're the one who bolted over the fence and actually captured the guy." He knows that, because it's all the police would talk about. It took them a while to arrest Bill, from what he heard, because they were so overexcited at the presence of a hero in their midst.</p><p>If only they knew he'd been there undercover, too.</p><p>"You're the one who got the fence offline. Let's call it even."</p><p>He nods, still smiling widely. "You want to get out of here and eat pancakes?" He offers. His hand still seems to be on her cheek, and that's maybe a little overfamiliar, but she doesn't appear to be objecting.</p><p>"In a minute. There's something I have to do first."</p><p>"There is?"</p><p>She doesn't answer him in words. She answers him by reaching a hand up to the back of his neck and tugging until his face is crashing into hers, lips against lips, teeth clashing a little from sheer enthusiasm. Bellamy laughs into her mouth, but it's a delighted laugh, and he knits his hand into her hair to hold her close.</p><p>They kiss for a long time. Inappropriately long, probably. But he really doesn't care.</p><p>When at last they separate, they are both breathless and smiling.</p><p>"You want to go get those pancakes now?" She asks, claiming his hand and holding it tight.</p><p>"Can I maybe head home and change, first?" His eyes flit self-consciously to his uniform.</p><p>"Don't feel like you have to." Clarke says easily, pressing a peck to his cheek. "I'll be proud to eat pancakes with you no matter what you're wearing or what you do for a living."</p><p>That's silly, he thinks. Pancakes and pride do not belong in the same sentence.</p><p>It's silly, but it makes him feel lighter than he has felt in years.</p><p>…...</p><p>Clarke is still in Bellamy's house – or more specifically, his bed – when the <em>Arkadia Post</em> is delivered the following morning. She keeps promising she'll go home eventually, but neither of them has to work first thing today.</p><p>"I should go get that." He says, hearing the letterbox clang. Otherwise Octavia will only tread on it when she gets in from her morning run, and he hates to think of her slipping on the paper and falling. He's not overprotective, not at all.</p><p>Clarke nods, uncomplaining, and gives him a goodbye kiss for his trouble. He'll be gone a whole thirty seconds, after all, and that feels like a long time in the first flush of this awesome relationship.</p><p>He picks up the paper, glances at the headline and the photo. He finds himself laughing, loudly and perhaps almost hysterically.</p><p>"What is it?" Clarke calls from the bedroom.</p><p>"You'll want to read this." He replies, heading in there to hand it over to her.</p><p>It's a good article, he thinks – absurd and rude and inappropriate and everything else he loves to hate about the <em>Arkadia Post</em>. He looks forward to complaining to the editor in quite some detail.</p><p>
  <em>THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Is this the end of the world as we know it? Shocking scenes yesterday at Bardo House as a cleaner saves the day. The biggest shock of all? The Princess herself, engaged in a scandalous kiss with the very same cleaner for six minutes! Continued on page 4.</em>
</p><p>There's a picture of the two of them making out, of course. It's not a bad picture, Bellamy thinks, given the distance and the fence getting in the way. He might get it framed and put on his bedside table, perhaps.</p><p>"This is terrible." Clarke says, somewhere between horror and laughter. "I mean, it's almost funny. But what's the point of that gratuitous classism? Why can't cleaners save the day? Why can't a hero kiss a cleaner?"</p><p>"Because that would be the end of the world as we know it." Bellamy points out, jabbing his finger at the headline.</p><p>"This is trash. Why aren't they telling the actual story? We arrested Bill and you deactivated the death ray. I'm going to write to the editor and complain. I like to think that calling out attitudes like this has a part to play in saving the world too, you know?"</p><p>That's it. That's the moment Bellamy knows that Clarke is his perfect match. It's been coming on for a while, of course. But now, in this exact second, as they lie together on his bed, laughing in the face of the supposed end of the world – now, he is absolutely certain of it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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